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January 26, 2007

Memory Game

I just finished reading Robert Gray's Playing the Bookshop Memory Game Online printed in todays issue of Shelf Awareness. It's the game in which you the customer presents a book seller with a mystery of matching you up with the right book, based on memory and clues.

This game is what prompted me to set up the Q&A's, (Perhaps I should change the name of the category. "Mystery Book Hunt"?) You ask the question and I do my darnedest to try and answer, or find someone that can.

In the article Robert said — What booksellers really do, on our own or with colleagues, is play tag-team mnemonics. Customers enter the store with raw materials, garnered from conversations, misremembered ads and half-heard radio interviews. They deliver the clues and want rapid, even magical, revelation of the title. They scatter beads across the counter and ask us to hand them back a necklace . . . immediately.

Do they have the same expectations online? I suspect they give up more quickly there.

Personally I don't think a person gives up any more quickly online than off-line, instead, if I go by responses I receive for my efforts, I believe that people are willing to wait a little longer for an answer online. This doesn't go for everyone, or search engines wouldn't be as popular as they are. It just depends on the answer you're looking for.

When you're looking to make a purchase, its best to take your time and make sure you have the right book, than to jump at instant results. Unless the instant results matches what your looking for.

Posted by derstaffo at January 26, 2007 11:01 AM

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